America’s educational landscape is being transformed under the cover of “health.” This transformation began with sex education, which once was relegated to a subunit of physiology that addressed the science of human reproduction. But sex education suddenly required its own graphic, stand-alone how-to course, then morphed into a “nonjudgmental” monstrosity designed to transmit knowledge of contraception and sex diseases.
Today’s “health classes” are little more than “mental-health” classes. In health class, students participate in tell-all depression surveys like TeenScreen (with accompanying curricula); stress-reduction exercises (e.g., yoga); and “conflict resolution,” which assigns moral equivalence to all behaviors. They learn about substance-abuse and smoking prevention, birth-control methods, alternative families, self-esteem, and so on. What they scarcely have time for is health. Who needs lessons on nutrition, dental hygiene, or the digestive, lymphatic, skeletal, or nervous systems, much less useful information about the brain, such as the physiology or warning signs of strokes or Alzheimer’s?
The latest emphasis is on “dating violence.” This effort began in Rhode Island in response to a terrible crime. In September 2005, 23-year-old Lindsay Burke had her throat slashed by an obsessed ex-boyfriend...